Paradise Lost

Reality wasn’t real when she did it; it was cold and empty. People don’t understand that, though, do they? Reality wasn’t real when she did it; it was a phantom of sorts, absurd in its stubbornness like a little boy declaring himself to be a doctor. Why? Because your father’s white dress shirt reaches your knees? And where’d you get that stethoscope? Did Daddy give it to you?

Reality wasn’t real when Rachel did it. The knife, sure, it felt tangible, but this too was just another absurdity. She’d adjusted her grip on the handle, laughing at the nothingness of it all, at the nothingness of everything, at the nothingness of the rules we live by, as though there were invisible walls limiting our actions, as though we couldn’t just limbo beneath the caution tape and sully everything with our fingerprints.

Emptiness always preceded the laughter, and she’d guffaw at this home brand semblance of reality, bland as cornflakes. This derision started small, with disregarding “staff only” signs, and then snowballed into sleeping with taxi drivers and police officers. Rachel found it odd to see all those walls crumble, to see a uniform as a costume, a badge as an insignificant scrap of metal, a stamp as a plaything – as though she couldn’t have her own custom made for thirty dollars (which she did, and then stamped on all her medical certificates when her maternity leave ran dry).

Rules, Rachel realised, weren’t real. And neither were people, really. They’d all look at her blankly, with a praying mantis’ head tilt, as she removed “Reserved” plaques from tables, or entered “Restricted Area[s]: Employees Only.” Those big red signs meant nothing to her, but everything to everybody.

“Rules aren’t real,” she’d say, and they’d lizard blink at her, clouded eyes.

Often, she felt she was watching a video buffer in real time, and soon enough, they were all but NPCs to her. There was no substance to them, to their hackneyed speech, to their vapidity. She was tempted, even, to wave her hand before their eyes, is anybody there? How many fingers am I holding up? They were all in a drunken daze, it seemed, and their eyes glazed over as they rambled on and on about trivialities – not once did anyone let her glimpse beneath their mask, and so she was convinced the masks were their true faces. And it was isolating; their pristine perfection was isolating.

So, you see, reality wasn’t real when Rachel did it. It wasn’t real when blood spurt from Matthew’s tiny chest, but rather a silly imitation of reality, like a clown’s squirting flower or big red shoes. It was hyperbolic, playful, slapstick, as though her little boy were only a prop, a bag of flour in a onesie – and that’s what it had felt like: a hardness, a softness. It was only a stunt! Thanks for coming, folks! We hope you enjoyed the show! It was only corn syrup and red food colouring. It was only corn syrup and red food colouring. It was only corn syrup and red food colouring. Right?

But the curtains didn’t close, there was no applause (not even in her head), and an eerie silence wrapped its arms around her. Tangible, it was tangible, like an embrace, no, a straitjacket.

The knife on the carpet glittered differently, as though it had shapeshifted, and Rachel watched with a pensive tilt of the head, like a dog confused by its own reflection.

The ringing silence was as loud as an alarm, and she pulled Matthew’s limp body from the cot. His head lolled back like a baby doll’s. In a daze, she shook him as though he might wake up, as though it were just a game of Dead Soldiers. You can move now!

But sometimes, only the aftermath feels real, when we cannot reverse what we’ve done; and it stares at us, pale-faced and wide-eyed, a voiceless why on its blue lips. A wave of nausea. Rachel sunk to the carpet, as real as quicksand, where she crumpled up like a marionette cast aside, her bobblehead boy cradled in her arms. Only now did she register the blood, the warmth, the weight. His, hers, and that of her actions. The lightness was all gone all at once, replaced with a vengeful gravity that chained her to the blood-soaked carpet. A force above pressed down on her like a hydraulic press, and with reality thus compressed, a scream burst from her chest.

Reality wasn’t real when she did it, but the aftermath sure as hell was. People don’t understand madness, though, do they?

“Other people no longer feel real to me,” she’d told her psychologist. She could have climbed over the desk and pulled his hair, put a finger up his nose, emptied the contents of his penholder into her purse.

“I think we all feel like that sometimes,” he’d said, “but Rachel, you seem pretty fine to me.”

His nameplate stood on the desk between them, another useless slab of metal that supposedly meant something. Rachel knew if she unbuttoned her blouse and said something suggestive, all the supposed rules and roles would melt away – they always did.

“You’ve got a good life,” he said. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders.”

She nodded her understanding. He wasn’t real, either.

But it wasn’t always so. All Rachel’s life, she’d never questioned authority; it felt real back then. Authority figures were important. Authority figures were good. Authority figures would protect you. She hadn’t anticipated such a figure touching her body as though it were an extension of his own; surely, all the examinations were normal, all the light-hearted comments.

“You’re falling out of your dress,” her doctor once commented.

She’d nodded politely, hands on her baby bump.

“It’s normal for the breasts to swell,” he’d said, his tone shifting like a gear into medical detachment. Then came the roll of his chair wheels, the touching, the “how does that feel? Tender?”

His brazenness had made her question herself. She couldn’t fathom someone abusing her with a smile on his face, in a uniform, in medical gloves. Abuse happened in alleyways behind dumpster bins in the dead of night, not in an illuminated doctor’s office on an examination table, your child’s father a door away. Maybe Rachel was naïve, or maybe she’d been raised to believe the world worked differently, that it was kinder, gentler, that a doctor was a doctor, not a boy in his father’s white dress shirt. Where’d you get that stethoscope? Did Daddy give it to you?

So, you see, reality wasn’t real when Rachel did it, reality wasn’t real when Rachel did it, reality wasn’t real when Rachel did it.

Reality wasn’t real.

But people don’t understand madness, do they?